After he had attended to all these matters, he made preparations for marching.  A considerable flotilla, laden with provisions, artillery, ammunition, and baggage, was to run along the coast to the Rosetta mouth, enter the Nile, and ascend the river at the same time as the French army.  He then set out with the main body of the army, which, after leaving the two garrisons in Malta and Alexandria, was about thirty thousand strong.  He had ordered his flotilla to proceed as high as Ramanieh, on the banks of the Nile.  There he purposed to join it, and to proceed up the Nile parallel with it, in order to quit the Delta and to reach Upper Egypt, or Bahireh.  There were two roads from Alexandria to Ramanieh; one through an inhabited country, along the sea-coast and the Nile, and the other shorter and as the bird flies, but across the desert of Damanhour.  Bonaparte, without hesitation, chose the shorter.  It was of consequence that he should reach Cairo as speedily as possible.  De-saix marched with the advanced guard, and the main body followed at a distance of a few leagues.  They started on the 6th of July.  When the soldiers found themselves amidst this boundless plain, with a shifting sand beneath their feet, a scorching sun over their heads, without water, without shade, with nothing for the eye to rest upon but rare clumps of palm-trees, seeing no living creatures but small troops of Arab horsemen, who appeared and disappeared at the horizon, and sometimes concealed themselves behind sand-hills to murder the laggards, they were profoundly dejected.  They found all the wells, which at intervals border the road through the desert, destroyed by the Arabs.  There were left only a few drops of brackish water, wholly insufficient for quenching their thirst.

[Illustration:  097.jpg street dogs]

They had been informed that they should find refreshments at Damanhour, but they met with nothing there but miserable huts, and could procure neither bread nor wine; only lentils in great abundance, and a little water.  They were obliged to proceed again into the desert.  Bonaparte saw the brave Lannes and Murat take off their hats, dash them on the sand, and trample them under foot.  He, however, overawed all:  his presence imposed silence, and sometimes restored cheerfulness.  The soldiers would not impute their sufferings to him, but grew angry with those who took pleasure in observing the country.  On seeing the men of science stop to examine the slightest ruins, they said they should not have been there but for them, and revenged themselves with witticisms after their fashion.  Caffarelli, in particular, brave as a grenadier, and inquisitive as a scholar, was considered by them as the man who had deceived the general and drawn him into this distant country.  As he had lost a leg on the Rhine, they said, “He, for his part, laughs at this:  he has one foot in France.”  At last, after severe hardships, endured at first with impatience, and afterwards with